Gun-related message boards lit up this week over news of the arrest of an American man at the Canadian border.

Retired U.S. Army sergeant major Louis DiNatale and his wife were on a romantic getaway from Kentucky to Vermont when they say their GPS led them astray to the border.

When DiNatale failed to declare a loaded handgun in the centre console — he says he simply forgot it was there — he was detained for four days and now faces gun-smuggling charges that could land him in prison for three years.

“It was an honest mistake,” DiNatale, 46, told Postmedia News Wednesday from Louisville, where he works as a paralegal for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“There’s not even a traffic ticket in my background. Why would I come to Canada to bring a small weapon to smuggle in?”

Louis DiNatale

DiNatale’s Ottawa lawyer, Bruce Engel, said border officers could have shown more discretion, but he also understands that they have to make quick decisions.

Engel said his bigger beef is with Crown attorneys and how they have been unwilling to cut his client any slack.

Given the gun culture south of the border, “it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone would forget a gun in their car,” Engel said. It’s no different than leaving a pair of hockey skates in your car up here.

Officials with the Canada Border Services Agency did not respond to a request for comment by late Wednesday afternoon.

The CBSA website states clearly that visitors must declare all firearms when entering the country.

DiNatale’s September arrest, first reported by the Los Angeles Times this week, is drumming up fierce debate online: was DiNatale careless and solely to blame for his misfortune? Or was he the victim of too-rigid border enforcers?

“Why did they not just turn him around at the border? Or take the gun and allow him to turn around and go back,” wrote one commenter on the website guns.com.

“Does one show respect for weapons by forgetting where they put them? I don’t think so,” countered another.

The story was featured prominently Wednesday on the website of the National Rifle Association, the powerful American lobbying group.

DiNatale said he normally carries his Bersa .380 handgun for self-defence. But a few days before the road trip, he moved the gun from his car to his wife’s BMW because he was on his way to an appointment at the Fort Knox military post and didn’t want it to cause any issues.

On the day of their vacation — the couple were destined for a resort called Smugglers’ Notch — DiNatale’s wife came to pick him up from work in the BMW and he forgot the gun was in the console.

After eight or nine hours on the road listening to Gospel music and having a good time, the couple wound up on the Thousand Islands Bridge for Canada.

He said he tried to explain to the border officer why they didn’t have their passports and asked if they could just turn around. He said he showed them their reservation documents.

But the interrogation continued. He was asked about any guns and he acknowledged that he had a concealed weapons license but did not have the gun on him. When asked why, he said he knew that crossing state lines with the gun could be an issue.

DiNatale said he and his wife were given a slip of paper and told to wait inside a building as officers searched the car.

Several officers subsequently came in with their guns drawn and took DiNatale and his wife into custody.

She was released after a few hours but DiNatale, who was charged with three customs act offences and two weapons offences, was held for four days before being let out on bail.

DiNatale, who is due back in court in June, said if his intent was to smuggle, why would he put the gun in such an “obvious” spot?

Other Americans have been caught up in similar scenarios.

In 2012, Utah college student Kraig Jacobson and his brother were riding their motorcycles across the U.S. to raise money for cancer. At one point they decided to cross the border into Ontario. Jacobson failed to declare his handgun and was held in custody, triggering a “Free Kraig” campaign back home. He was released four months later after agreeing to pay a $10,000 fine.

In 2011, two seniors from Texas were similarly fined $10,000 each after failing to declare a small arsenal of firearms in their motorhome at the B.C. border. Danny Cross and Hugh Barr and their wives were on their way to Alaska to celebrate Cross’ anniversary.

The two men apologized in court through their lawyer, saying they were “humiliated that we ignored the handgun laws of Canada.”